The court previously issued an order explaining how the ban violates federal religious freedom rights here.

Since the prison system could not agree with the prisoners on a way to craft an injunction, Judge Schreier simply issued an order stating, “[D]efendants are enjoined from banning tobacco used during Native American religious ceremonies.”

4 thoughts on “Remedial Order re: South Dakota Prison Ban on Tobacco”

Tobacco & prayer are joined in ceremony together…
Always has been as long as we have had it, always will be…
Laws written are only as honorable & just as the law writer, many questionable laws put into being in South Dakota had nothing to do with benefiting natives there…but more for the politician who developed & implemented those self-serving laws for themselves, which had no oversight of how they affected the people & their lands…
If incarcerated natives wish to pray with tobacco…they are fulfilling their freedom of religion granted them in 1978 by Jimmy Carter.
Prayer does change peoples lives, why would natives not be allowed tobacco for ceremony, if they are religiously using it to become a better human being…?
The government prison system will pay for a sex change for a prisoner, yet will not allow incarcerated natives tobacco?
Only in South Dakota, the wild wild west….!
Go figure, eh?